My Friend's a Murderer and I'm OK with it [Scint, Shade, Scrapper]

"fair eno- Lance stopped in his tracks, suddenly, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. seemingly snappin out of it, his expression only slithered to a calculating train of thought. he dragged his way back to Shade's side, "Hey Shade? I'm sure you don't want to talk about the details, but...this, Apollo was, um... killed..? trying to get to you?"

"Weren't you there?" Shade looked at Scintillance, mild confusion shimmering through the tears in her eyes. "Scrapper momentarily saved him from some griffons, but he succumbed to poison at the hideout."

Lance clenches his eyes and tried to hard to remember... and then snapped his hooves and his eyes wide open. "Oh THAT pegasus! Shade, that pony managed to get to get to the hideout somehow, while under attack... what's to say he wasn't followed? I mean feathers to it, he already WAS followed if he was attacked on the way to you..."

"As far as I know he stumbled into griffons while searching for me... Scrapper disposed of them before carrying Apollo to the hideout", Shade summarized what she had put together of the events, putting in a large effort to not fall into stuttering. She was already failing to keep her body under control, and where every limb stood perfectly still while not needed, a light tremble was noticable under her cloak. "I hope your finished bringing up bad memories..."

Scint was generally pretty oblivious to most things, but not when he was being serious, and boy did he notice the struggle in Shade's voice. It pained him to bring any pain to her right now, but their lives were at risk because the security of their hideout is so unsure. he levelled his hoof to Shade's shoulder, and gave her a cross between an apolagetic, and concerned look, " I'm sorry Shade, bringing up bad memories isn't my intention; it's preventing you from never having memories again, and I'm not finished, unfortunately. I know the griffon soldiers are a lot too far on the rough side, but would they go to such an extreme of murdering a random pegasus flying by, and poison him on his escape?  Please, try to detach you emotions for a sec, this just doesn't add up. I feel like we need to relocate that base of ours, at least as a safety measure in case there was more to than fight than rowdy griffons dead-set on the death of one pony at all costs, for no real reason..." Scint cringed, "OK bad choice of words, I'm really bad at this. remind me to ask Scrapper for tips on not being stupid with my words, once we set him free."

There were two basic coping mechanism for Shade to deal with sorrowful memories. One was not thinking about them, which obviously didn't work right now. The other was getting angry. As Lance continued to talk, she began seething, and had to remeind herself again and again that Scintillance was a friend. A partially idiotic friend, admittedly, but blowing up at him was not something she'd allow herself to do. Not anymore at least. When he was finally done, she tried her best to keep her voice at least somewhat level, but she was still hissing from anger. "The fight happened at the hole you fell through. I obviously don't know why it happened, because everybody who knew is dead. Scrapper said he made sure he wasn't followed, and that's good enough for me. But what happened back then isn't even important! There has been no concerning griffon activity near the entry since then at all. If you want to worry about an incident, for Luna's sake, take yesterday! That was a hasty and direct retreat. I haven't seen anything following us, but I didn't make sure because I was injured and Scrapper was at the brink of madness." She paused momentarily. "Relocation might be necessary, you're right with that, but you've got the wrong reason."

Lance went silent, besides processing what Shade said, processing the emotion in her voice. for all he understood, Shade completely trusted Scrapper to make sure he wasn't followed, but neglected his reasoning on the prior griffon incident. But now adding yesterday to the pile... "well, doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong, as long as the message is through; the hideout doesn't feel as safe as it was." Lance felt that there'd be no reason to argue with an emotionally unstable mare at this point; just find a common ground. But changing the subject felt like an appropriate idea, Shade obviously didn't like this topic. "So... asking Starlight to kill you. what's up with that?

After finally getting Lance to let Apollo rest, Shade plopped down on her haunches, closed her eyes and didn't move for a while. Her breathing soon grew calm again, and the trembles left her body as she reigned in her emotions again, now that they weren't prodded again and again. When she was satisfied, she suddenly stood up and continued the way towards their destination. "Apparently nothing", she said, shruggingly, over two minutes after the question had been asked. "I wouldn't even demand that she actually gets through to me, but there has been no honest attempt. I can't drag her through this. Either she has enough motivation to come along herself, or she should take another path."

Lance waited patiently for Shade's little sit-down session; he' bothered her enough. upon her delayed reply, he responded, "Honestly I've my fears about what "other path" she might take. maybe for the best; none of our hooves will be clean by the end of this. And yet, She's likely to get herself dirty otherwise. I'd hate to see either of that happen..." Scint pondered ahead, with a kind of concern he's never felt. "Oh man, look at me, stuck between sage mode and... I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a worrisome big brother."